


Being True (To Yourself)

by iamisaac



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-18
Updated: 2015-11-18
Packaged: 2018-05-02 04:42:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5234522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamisaac/pseuds/iamisaac
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Quotation: 52) Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning, but give me the man who has pluck to fight when he's sure of losing. That's my way, sir; and there are many victories worse than a defeat. -- George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)<br/>A/N: Many thanks to [info]westwardlee for a great beta job. The rubbishness is all my own.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Being True (To Yourself)

**Author's Note:**

> Quotation: 52) Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning, but give me the man who has pluck to fight when he's sure of losing. That's my way, sir; and there are many victories worse than a defeat. -- George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)  
> A/N: Many thanks to [info]westwardlee for a great beta job. The rubbishness is all my own.

Luna had never realised that she was lonely until she started school. Her parents had taught her at home, pre-Hogwarts, and she was used to entertaining herself in her spare time. An only child, she had not thought of herself as a lonely child. Her parents invited a wide range of people to the house, who were happy to spend a few moments entertaining a small girl in various fashions. She’d never had playmates of her own age and never thought it a loss.

 

But the Hogwarts Express! A train full of other children. Luna had been open-mouthed with wonder at the sight of them all, laughing and chatting, teasing and joking. It was a moment of magic only rivalled by the dewy dawn that her father had taken her out and they’d caught the briefest glance of an amber-winged flutewhistler. She could do nothing but stare around, awed.

She had been the only silent member of her carriage, thrust by a prefect into a group of other first years who appeared, to her eyes, to have known each other forever. Certainly they seemed to find common ground in pointing and laughing at her. She retired behind a copy of the Quibbler and tried not to show she minded. Eventually, one small boy demanded her name in high-pitched voice. Luna instinctively stood up, as her father had taught her to do.

“Luna Lovegood.”

It had not occurred to her that there was anything particularly amusing about her name, but the other kids saw it at once.

“Luna?” squawked a thrilled girl, who would later be the first of the first years to be sorted into Slytherin. “Loony, more like!” 

She squealed with laughter at her own wit, and the others joined her, looking over Luna from head to foot. Bright pink robes clashed innocently with a scarf of red and orange stripes, and Luna had chosen the burgundy stars that held her hair back only after serious deliberation. In one hurtful moment, she was made aware of the difference between the conservative black, blue and grey clothes of the others (several of whom were wearing peculiar outfits that Luna learned later were a Muggle garment called ‘jeans’) and her own joyfully bright robes. Luna tilted her chin a fraction higher as she gave back look for look.

“If you want,” she said calmly.

“It’s not very nice,” a small boy said uncertainly. (She learnt later that his name was Colin Creevey. He would be one of the first Gryffindors of their year.)

Luna’s thoughts went back to her father, not a year ago, tearing up a cruel review of her mother’s death which suggested that for anyone who lived with Xenophilius, death might be a merciful release. She had heard him sobbing, late that night, but at the time his response had been defiant.

“If people are determined to be ignorant,” he had said, “it says more about them than me.”

She repeated her father’s words as she sat down again, her fingers clutching the Quibbler convulsively. Hera, as the future Slytherin was called, relaxed slightly. If Luna had cried, the other students might have swarmed around her in sympathy. Luna, ignorant of the ways of children, knew no better than to defend herself. Hera knew it all.

“Ooh, the Loony girl’s calling us stupid!” she cried. “She’s got some cheek! I hope she won’t be sorted into my House” – a hope which would, as it turned out, be granted, though more to Luna’s relief than Hera’s.

Various other children took up the baton.

“Like we’d take any notice of someone dressed like that,” said a boy.

“Yeah, and reading that rubbish,” added another, who fancied himself literary.

“Why’s it rubbish?” asked a girl with two plaits and a larger than average nose.

“Oh, everyone knows that,” the second boy said largely. Later, after the other children learned more about the Quibbler’s often unusual articles they would remember what he’d said and give him an entirely undeserved reputation for being ‘in the know’. A few years in the future, different words of his would help to give a certain Harry Potter a bad name for separate reasons.

“It isn’t rubbish,” Luna said quietly, sitting herself down again and opening her magazine at random. Her protuberant eyes looked round the assembled group of children who were almost mesmerised by this strange girl-child who neither broke down at their teasing nor got angry. “No more than there is anything wrong with my name. It means moon, you know.”

“Oh, thank you for sharing your great knowledge with us,” sneered Hera. 

But the other children were losing interest in baiting her. They began to chat among themselves, squabbling and giggling. Luna was yesterday’s news now: the joke was over for the moment, when there were so many other things to talk about. She was just the odd one, the strange one, left out because no one would think to include her in their conversation, whilst she herself knew nothing of the ‘rules’ around socialising.

She would learn. Yes, she would learn. Near the end of her first term, a curly haired prefect from Ravenclaw took her to one side for a conversation.

“You don’t seem to be making many friends, Luna,” Penelope Clearwater said gently.

Luna gave her the direct blue glance she was becoming known for.

“They think I’m mad,” she explained.

“Yes.” Penny hesitated, looking at the youngest girl in her House. Luna was wearing the standard school robes, but somehow, although they suited everybody else, Luna made them look like fancy dress. She was a caricature of a wicked witch from a Muggle story; a hag pretending to be a girl in order to suck people under her spell. Luna’s attempts to personalise the uniform were shown in the long purple boots she wore; in the shining brass medallion she wore with a strange animal carved into it. Penny was obviously trying not to stare at it, but it was clear from her look that she was wondering what it could be. 

“It’s a Crumple Horned Snorkack,” Luna said, correctly reading Penelope’s thoughts.

And that was another problem. For a girl who showed so little grasp of social behaviour, Luna had an uncanny knack of reading minds and answering the question she found there, usually at the most inopportune moments.

“Couldn’t you...” Penny hesitated, apparently still not sure how to phrase the thought in her mind. “Couldn’t you just try and fit in a bit more? I’m sure your classmates would like you if they were able to get to know you a bit more.”

Luna put the pendant in her mouth and bit down on it thoughtfully, her eyes glued to Penny’s face.

“But, you see, they do know me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“They know precisely what I’m like. I’ve never made any attempt to hide it.”

“Couldn’t you... tone it down a little, just to give people a chance?”

“Pretend to be something I’m not, you mean?”

Penelope squirmed uncomfortably in her chair. 

“Just – try to be a bit more... like the others?” 

Luna smiled.

“No,” she said simply. “I couldn’t. You see – I’m the only ‘me’ I’ve got.”

Did she know then, at eleven, what her words would mean? Luna being Luna, she probably did. Friends would be nice, she suspected, but if it meant she had to lose herself in the winning? Some victories were not worth the price.

She stood by that.


End file.
